


Completing the Cycle (The Reverse-Clockwise Remix)

by emothy



Category: Tawny Man Trilogy - Hobb
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-04
Updated: 2006-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:58:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emothy/pseuds/emothy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was easy to surrender to a life that, on the surface, had seemed to be everything Fitz had wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Completing the Cycle (The Reverse-Clockwise Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Completing the Cycle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/35879) by [Cyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyn/pseuds/Cyn). 



-

It was easy to surrender to a life that, on the surface, had seemed to be everything Fitz had wanted. He had Molly; most importantly, he had a family. He had peace. The problem was, peace did not have him.

Even before Molly was gone, Fitz's sleep had been troubled. It was important not to deny his Skill magic, and so he had never had himself sealed off to it, and so had never been protected from it's pull. Eventually he feared to sleep, lest the Skill-walking intrude upon his dreams. It was a flawless transition from unconscious imaginings to spying on real people, in real places, going about their everyday business.

_I need to see him_, his mind chanted. _I need to see him._

There was no need to voice the thought. No need at all to speculate on who it might be.

To acknowledge this need was to admit defeat. To tell himself he had never needed what he had led himself to believe was a perfect life. Fitz did not want to give in to the fact that a simple life of contentment was not what he wanted, nor who he was. He was a Catalyst, true, but he had brought about his changes. He was done.

Fitz was good at telling himself things until he believed them to be true, but the wolf in him, buried deep down in a comforting place, would no longer allow it.

_Accept who you are, Changer_, Nighteyes said from within. _Accept our destiny as it should be. Return to the dragons. When you accept who you are now, you shall pave the way to what you are meant to become._

The wolf leaves it unsaid that their hunting partner should be there with them also for this final journey. Fitz does not actively seek out the Fool with his Skill, and yet he knows the Fool will be there. Maybe not in time to begin, but he shall come upon the stone graveyard before the carving is finished and therefore begun.

-

His memories of the Fool are perhaps more painful than earlier ones of Molly and Burrich and even torture itself. To recall them brings more than heightened emotion, it physically shakes Fitz to his very core. He tells himself this is why he leaves them til last, but when his dearest friend make himself known (_no scent, but I hear the tread of footsteps upon gravel, upon chipped away beginnings of many dragons before_), his mind speaks the truth unasked.

"I've been waiting for you," he says. And, "I didn't want to forget you yet."

The Fool has changed, but not too much. Fitz knows that his life-long companion still lies beneath the darker skin, heart beating just the same as always. He himself has changed much more, both outwardly as age took it's toll, and inwardly on this final journey of emotion. He gives voice to his need to help the world, and vaguely wonders at the Fool's power to see. Does he know how directly this final move on the gameboard will reflect in the future? Does he see their dragon; because it is now as much the Fool's as it is his own, and Nighteyes, soaring across the jewelled skies? Does he know the colour this memory stone will absorb and reflect? Though colour is too common a word for the rainbows and light that shimmered from the dragons as they flew overhead so long ago. They still remember it as though it were yesterday.

-

Though there is no great purpose in this task, like the old, it is still just as important in its own right. Perhaps more important, Fitz thinks, in it's own way.

There is before and after in every moment spent carving the dragon. There are yesterdays and tomorrows in Fitz's Skill-covered arms. Once he had hungered for this, and burned when he was denied. Now, now that his memories were in the dragon, he cannot understand why he had been so angry. So impulsive. When had he been so young?

It no longer matters, when. When is an empty concept now that he has the opportunity to become immortal.

-

"This will be a better goodbye than our last," Fitz says, and he knows the Fool understands why his voice contains no emotion. Their minds and souls are like threads in a tapestry, weaving inbetween one another, in and around, supporting, encasing. At certain points they join so completely Fitz feels much like he is speaking to himself. There is no other person standing beside him, hands upon his, upon the dragon-skin.

"But Fitz, this isn't good-bye," he hears, and perhaps it is spoken, perhaps it is thought. Perhaps it is Skilled, or something beyond even that, where people make prophecies by moonlight spoken without tongues. "It's just a break in our cycle," the Fool 'says', and as their joining becomes complete Fitz knows the Fool, this one last time, is wrong.   
He feels no breaking at all.

-


End file.
